Ebola virus outbreak: August 1 as it happened

World Health Organisation says the region is losing the battle against the
virus as the leader of Guinea's Ebola task force says measures by Sierra
Leone and Liberia are making the virus 'worse', follow the latest
developments here

Latest

17.30 Thanks for following, we will be ending our live coverage here for the evening.

17.14 In the fight against the deadly virus, the British Red Cross is sending two more specialist delegates to West Africa.

A health worker and logistics expert are being sent to Sierra Leone and Liberia respectively. The pair hope to raise more awareness of the disease to help stop the rapid spreading that has killed 57 in four days.

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17.03 Seychelles forfeited an African Cup qualifying game and withdrew from the competition Thursday rather than allow Sierra Leone's soccer team to travel to the Indian Ocean island, AP reports.

17.01 &lt;noframe&gt;Twitter: Donald J. Trump - Stop the EBOLA patients from entering the U.S. Treat them, at the highest level, over there. THE UNITED STATES HAS ENOUGH PROBLEMS!&lt;/noframe&gt;

&lt;noframe&gt;Twitter: Donald J. Trump - Ebola patient will be brought to the U.S. in a few days - now I know for sure that our leaders are incompetent. KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!&lt;/noframe&gt;

Donald Trump said the American ebola victims should not be brought to the US. On Twitter, the business mogul said: "Ebola patient will be brought to the US in a few days - now I know for sure that our leaders are incompetent. KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!"

Trump added: "Stop the ebola patients from entering the US. Treat them, at the highest level, over there. THE UNITED STATES HAS ENOUGH PROBLEMS!"

16.50 Over at Ampped, they have looked at the diseases affecting some countries on the African continent and look at deaths in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia in 2011. It demonstrates that, despite it still being an issue we need to address, there are other diseases which kill thousands all the time.

Malaria, influenza and pneumonia are the biggest killers in those countries.

The patient or paitents are being taken to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta because it is one of only four in the US with a special isolation unit for deadly communicable diseases, and it is close to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The isolation ward is on the ground floor and separate from other hospital wards.

16.19 The US agencies involved with bringing a US aid worker to the US have sought to reassure citizens their safety is being considered, Nick Allen, The Telegraph's Los Angeles Correspondent, writes.

The news that, for the first time, a patient with Ebola would be treated on US soil, led to some panicked comments on social media, such as "I really don't want it anywhere near the US" and "How many degrees of separation are between you and Ebola?"

But a spokeswoman for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the Washington Post: “The safety and security of US citizens is our highest priority. These are US citizens who are returning to the United States for medical care. They are being returned under strict medical protocols for infectious diseases."

The modified Gulfstream jet used to transport one or both Americans will be fitted with an Aeromedical Biological Containment System.

16.09 Margaret Chan, chief of the World Health Organisation, has described the outbreak as out of control and called for a more robust response, Reuters reports.

"This outbreak is moving faster than our efforts to control it," Ms Chan told the presidents of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast at a meeting in Guinea's capital, Conakry.

"If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socioeconomic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries," she said, according to a WHO transcript.

"This meeting must mark a turning point in the outbreak response," Ms Chan added.

14.30 With 20,000 citizens living in three countries affected by an Ebola outbreak, Lebanon is taking a series of measures to prevent the virus reaching its shores, government officials said, AFP reports.

Lebanon's Health Minister Wael Abu Faour, during a tour of Beirut airport, said the ministry "has asked all airlines, particularly those bringing people from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, to inform Lebanese authorities about anyone displaying suspicious symptoms."

Any traveller with such symptoms would be turned over for assessment to an 18-person team of doctors and nurses posted at the airport.

The foreign ministry, meanwhile, called on Lebanese embassies to ensure that citizens abroad were kept informed of the outbreak, taking appropriate precautions and being given assistance if they wanted to return home.

Nearly 12,000 Lebanese citizens live in Sierra Leone, with another 6,500 in Liberia and 3,500 in Guinea, the three African nations worst affected by the Ebola outbreak that has killed nearly 730 people so far.

14.06 Presidents from the West African countries hit by the Ebola outbreak are meeting with world health leaders to come up with ways to stop the spread of the deadly disease today.

13.50 A military spokesman for the African Union mission in Somalia says the AU has cancelled a planned troop rotation by Sierra Leonean forces because of the Ebola outbreak.

Col. Ali Aden Houmed told Associated Press late Thursday the Union decided to halt the deployment of a new battalion in an effort to prevent the disease from crossing into Somalia.

The West African nation is currently facing the worst recorded Ebola outbreak in history. More than 700 people have died. Sierra Leone is one of five nations that sends large numbers of troops to Somalia to protect the government and fight al-Shabab militants.

13.36 Liberia Information Minister Lewis Brown has just had an article published in theHuffington Poston Ebola.

Our major information challenge is not in towns and cities where pre-emptive measures are more possible to enforce. It is in the countryside where western health workers can be treated with suspicion, and some have been turned away because communities believe they are the cause of the spread of the disease.

Superstition aside, traditional practices in burial, including the preparation and washing of the deceased, is one of the near-certain ways of contracting the virus if death was from Ebola.

13.14 The leader of Guinea's Ebola task force said on Friday that moves by neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone to contain the disease that has killed 729 people this year - its deadliest outbreak - may have the opposite effect, Reuters reports.

Currently, some measures taken by our neighbours could make the fight against Ebola even harder," Aboubacar Sidiki Diakité told Reuters before a meeting of heads of state from the three West African nations to coordinate a regional response.

"When children are not supervised, they can go anywhere and make the problem worse. It is part of what we will be talking about," he said.

12.56 Lyndon Lee Suy, a doctor and spokesperson for the Philippines' Department of Health, gave a press briefing in Manila today, AFP reports.

Philippine health officials said the country is monitoring the health of Filipinos returning from west African countries hit by Ebola outbreaks to prevent the virus spreading to the Asian nation.

12.36 Emirates Airlines is the third airline to suspend flights to Ebola-affected countries.

The Dubai airline will suspend flights to Guinea and this comes after Pan-African airlines Arik and ASKY decided to suspend flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone.

12.03 Lebanon's labour ministry said Friday it has suspended the issuance of work permits to residents of several African countries hit by an outbreak of the Ebola virus.

In a statement carried by Lebanon's National News Agency, the ministry said that "as a result of fears about public health and to prevent an Ebola epidemic, the labour ministry is no longer receiving work permit requests from residents of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia."

An official at the ministry told AFP the number of workers affected by the measures was limited and the decision was taken as "a precautionary measure".

11.43 Medecins Sans Frontieres leaflets were available in the papers today about the Ebola virus and how the charity was treating the disease.

On a double page spread they had the detailed graphic below to explain how they treat the virus.

How the charity treats the Ebola virus

11.14 Dubai's Emirates Airline is to suspend flights to Guinea, one of three African countries hit by an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, a company spokesperson told AFP on Friday.

"Emirates will be suspending its service to Conakry from (Saturday) 2 August, 2014 until further notice, due to the outbreak of the Ebola virus in Guinea," a spokesperson said in emailed comments.

"We apologise for any inconvenience caused to our customers. However the safety of our passengers and crew is of the highest priority and will not be compromised," the source added.

10.44 A military spokesman for the African Union mission in Somalia says the AU has cancelled a planned troop rotation by Sierra Leonean forces because of the breakout of Ebola, AP reports.

Col. Ali Aden Houmed told The Associated Press late Thursday that the Union decided to halt the deployment of a new battalion in an effort to prevent the disease from crossing into Somalia.

The West African nation is currently facing the worst recorded Ebola outbreak in history. More than 700 people have died. Sierra Leone is one of five nations that sends large numbers of troops to Somalia to protect the government and fight al-Shabab militants.

10.33 CNN has this video in which presenter Tom Foreman virtually looks at how a patient with the virus would be taken to the US for medical care.

10.17 Potentially good news.

The National Institutes of Health plans in mid-September will begin testing an experimental Ebola vaccine on people after seeing encouraging results in pre-clinical trials on monkeys, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's allergy and infectious diseases unit, said in an email to Reuters.

10.06 CNN and ABC News reported a second American infected with Ebola was to be flown to the United States, reports Reuters.

CNN identified the US-bound patients as Brantly and Writebol. Reuters could not independently confirm the reports.

"Anyone flying into the areas is provided with a briefing from our health services," he said.

"That's a comprehensive briefing which outlines all the issues that people should be aware of. I'm satisfied that the measures at the airports where outbreaks have been identified are working, and are working well."

09.54 The WHO has this powerful feature of what it is like to survive Ebola, with interviews Guineans Mohamed and Zena. They fortunately surivived the virus but, according to WHO, "the stigma is so strong they prefer not to use their real names or show their faces in print".

Zena said: “I never heard of Ebola before, now I research and read a lot, I listen to people who work in the field and I learned a lot…

"I will continue to be “a community worker” with MSF, speak on radio, and meet journalists, but I do not want to see my picture taken. There is still a lot of stigma around us”

“We should stop community transmission if we want to come back to our normal lives… Mohammed said.

”When the car of MSF comes to drive us to our work, there are still people who think that we are going with MSF to get treated.”

09.34 Earlier today we reported a US aid worker with the Ebola virus will be sent to a hospital in Atlanta for treatment. This is an interesting fact shared by Dr Sanjay Gupta, CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent.

&lt;noframe&gt;Twitter: Dr. Sanjay Gupta - For the first time in history, a patient with &lt;a href="https://twitter.com/search?src=hash&amp;q=%23Ebola" target="_blank"&gt;#Ebola&lt;/a&gt; will be in the United States. American health care worker being evacuated to Atlanta.&lt;/noframe&gt;

09.29 This is interesting from Vox.com. The three countries where Ebola is a problem have low health care spending.

It is between $40 and $100 per person per year, which is £24 and £60 a year. The website highlights the fact that their GDPs per capita are less than Haiti's.

09.23 WHO announced yesterday the Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak Response Plan in West Africa.

WHO says it "identifies the need for several hundred more personnel to be deployed in affected countries to supplement overstretched treatment facilities. Hundreds of international aid workers, as well as 120-plus WHO staff, are already supporting national and regional response efforts.

"But more are urgently required. Of greatest need are clinical doctors and nurses, epidemiologists, social mobilization experts, logisticians and data managers. The plan also outlines the need to increase preparedness systems in neighbouring nations and strengthen global capacities.

09.05 Bill Gardner has this report on Sierra Leone's mountain biking champion who disappeared from the Commonwealth Games, days after his sick teammate was tested for the Ebola virus.

Mohamed Tholley was due to compete in the time trial event in Glasgow today (Thurs) and the road race on Saturday, but never turned up at the start line.

The 25-year-old rider’s room key was later found in his hotel room, and senior figures in the Sierra Leone team believe he may have absconded over fears about the deadly disease.

08.55 Welcome to The Telegraph's live coverage of the Ebola outbreak. Today there are reports that officials think Mohamed Tholley might have absconded to avoid going home to Sierra Leone, which has declared a state of emergency due to a deadly Ebola outbreak.

The news follows reports that Sierra Leone cyclist Moses Sesay was quarantined and tested for Ebola at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, before being given the all-clear.